


A Balanced Diet

by Rahmi



Series: Flames [4]
Category: Sky High (2005)
Genre: Food, Friendship, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-11-07
Updated: 2008-11-07
Packaged: 2017-11-28 08:38:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,560
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/672424
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rahmi/pseuds/Rahmi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"So that wasn't your stomach I heard growling, right?" Layla asks.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Balanced Diet

**Author's Note:**

> So, uh, this series has a lot of implied Will/Warren and Will/Warren/Layla stuff going on. Just roll with it.

Jetstream gives him War and Peace for his birthday. He doesn't have the heart to point out that he has about twelve copies of the book now, that it's not clever, and, really, he hates the damn book anyway.  
  
Still, it gives him something to do during lunch when everyone else's in the lunchline and his stomach's growling at him. He scowls down at Lise as she dies. He's hungry, sure, but it's either eat now, or buy enough groceries for two days worth of dinner tonight.  
  
He's thinking about glowering down at his stomach in the hope that it'll _shut up_ before his friends show up to notice when Ethan plops his tray down next to him.  
  
"No lunch again, Warren?" he asks. He catches the open carton of chocolate milk before it can spill over Warren's book. Warren's not sure he wasn't secreting hoping the book would get ruined.  
  
It's long.  
  
"Not hungry," Warren grumbles back at the kid. If he bends his head another inch or two, his hair'll slide into his face. Ethan's too polite to randomly go bugging someone who's obviously reading. Too much of a nerd to do it, anyway.  
  
"So that _wasn't_ your stomach I heard growling, right?" Layla asks.  
  
Small hands comb through his hair just as he ducks his head those last, crucial inches. Layla pushes his hair back behind his ears and keeps going, catching it in a loose ponytail as Warren scowls down at his book.  
  
"Hey, I can see you again!" she says with a smile. If he wanted to, he could get a really awesome look down her shirt right now; she's leaning over the table to get at him. He doesn't even glance up from his book. "Thanks for not burning me," Layla murmurs when she has his hair twisted to her satisfaction.  
  
Warren grunts. He feels naked with his hair out of his face, like people are staring at him. The red in his hair is harder to hide when it's pulled back.  
  
Will slides onto the bench across from Warren, nudging Layla over with a shove that almost lands her on the floor. Warren hides a smile by ducking his head more, reading over the same ten lines about Lise that he's been trying to get through all lunch period.  
  
"What's up?" Will asks as soon as he's done apologizing to Layla.  
  
"Warren's not eating," Ethan says.  
  
"His stomach's growling," Layla adds.  
  
Warren turns his head enough that he can bare his teeth at both Layla and Ethan at the same time. Then he goes back to reading. He doesn't know why they have such a problem with him skipping lunch; it's not like he's trying to take their food or anything.  
  
He's the son of a villan. Didn't mean he was a petty bully.  
  
"You should eat," Will says with the ease of someone who's never had to pick between eating now or eating later. Of course, before Warren's temper does more than cause a slow, simmering outline of heat (Ethan prudently scoots away from him), Will shoves his tray into the middle of the table. "Help yourself," he says, taking the juice off.  
  
Within a few seconds, Ethan and Layla have lumped more food onto it. Warren looks a the food, looks at his friends, and tips his head back down to his book.  
  
"Starving yourself again?" Magenta slides in on the other side of him, throwing her tray down hard enough that an apple rolls off to bump against Warren's arm. "You know, nobody likes the anorexic look."  
  
"I am _not_ anorexic," Warren snarls. Seriously. Weird obsession.  
  
Layla and Magenta share a look and purse their lips. Warren fights the urge to get up and find somewhere quiet that _doesn't_ smell like food or have annoying friends. Even if he does move, chances are everyone'll just get up and move with him anyway.  
  
Magenta pushes a milk cartoon against his elbow. "Drink," she says, "Eat. Be merry."  
  
"A merry Warren," Zach says as he joins the table. "Man, that'd be seriously wack. You want my apple?" He doesn't even wait for an answer, just slides the fruit in front of Warren.  
  
It wrinkles a page of his book.  
  
Warren gives up.  
  
"Fine."  
  
The apple is squishy, kind of disgusting, but the second he gets something into his mouth, everyone finally looks away from him. He chews the mush in his mouth, and hopes that the weird taste it's leaving isn't a worm.  
  
He doesn't really have high hopes from the cafeteria food.  
  
Someone kicks his leg under the table. Warren's pretty sure it's Will, because his shin creaks alarmingly, sending warning pain up into his thigh. Someday, he's going to sit Will down and explain that, yes, it fucking well hurts when he kicks him at full strength.  
  
He's lying. He won't ever tell him, because Will'd look like a kicked puppy if he did it. Warren heals. It's not a big deal.  
  
Will's holding out a cookie when Warren looks up. "Homemade," he says coaxingly. "Mom made them. Well, she tried to make them. Mrs. Williams had to come help her, but she tried."  
  
It's heart shaped. Will is offering a heart shaped cookie while Layla hides a smirk behind her flower cookie. Warren has to wonder abou the two of them sometimes, he really does, because seriously, what?  
  
"Can I have the star?" Warren asks, taking another bite out of his apple.  
  
Will shakes his head. "No," he says seriously. "You get a heart, War."  
  
"I think," Magenta says, "That Will _might_ be trying to tell you something, Warren." Ethan chokes some sort of sound off by taking a huge drink of his milk, but Zach laughs, loudly and obnoxiously.  
  
"What?" Will asks dumbly.  
  
Warren wants to go hide in the bathroom until they all go the hell away. Instead, he reaches out to snatch the cookie from Will's hand before Magenta can explain the joke to him.  
  
"Ah, you took Will's heart," Layla coos. She reaches out to pat Will on the hand and ends up twining her fingers with his. "I guess I can share."  
  
He gives her a flat look and wishes he could hide behind his hair. Whatever she did to it's holding, though. Instead, he just narrows a glare at her while Will looks a little confused and, God help them all, maybe even a little devious.  
  
The cookie is shortbread. It flakes apart in his fingers, crumbs falling down to the table. Warren ignites them without a thought; he knows the janitor and he really hates the man. Let him have to clean up soot.  
  
Warren sets his half finished apple on the table and turns the cookie over in his hands a few more times. Mrs. Stronghold is actually a pretty good cook, but Layla's mom likes to add weird shit to baked goods sometimes, like cottage cheese and applesauce.  
  
"They're good," Zach supplies helpfully.  
  
It's better than going hungry, he guesses. The cookie's small enough that he can pretty much just shove it into his mouth without having to worry about overflow. He's not a girl. He wasn't going to nibble on it like Magenta was doing or flake it into pieces like Layla.  
  
Will's staring at him when he looks up. Warren scowls at him. "What?" he demands.  
  
"You've got something..." Will leans foreward to brush at Warren's mouth before he even bothers to finish the sentence.  
  
Warren freezes. Will's fingers pause on his mouth and Will's face takes on this expression, _oh shit_ with a hint of _what am I doing?_ thrown in there for good measure, but when Warren cuts his eyes over to Layla, she's... smiling.  
  
"Crumbs," Will says weakly. The pressure he's putting on Warren's mouth doesn't actually hurt, which he guesses is an improvement, but it's still weird. If he wants to talk, he's going to have to _move_ his mouth under Will's finger and that's just. That's even weirder.  
  
"Think you broke him, dog," Zach says from one side.  
  
Will makes a kind of strangled noise. His fingers press harder against Warren's lips and Warren jerks his head away from them, a little, because his lip is gonna split any second now.  
  
Ethan leans over to plant one clammy, bony elbow into Warren's ribs lightly. "Did he break you?" he asks.  
  
"No," Warren says. Will's fingers are still against his lips. People are starting to _stare._ "Move your hand, Stronghold."  
  
"Yeah, uh, sure, yeah, lemme just." Will's hand jumps back to his side of the table and flattens against the tabletop.  
  
Someone clears their throat. Someone not at their table, where at least Ethan is pretending he's not paying attention and Magenta is sharing a laugh with Layla. Warren cuts a glare at the cafeteria at large, his hands flaring into fire, and it goes very, very quiet.  
  
"I wish you wouldn't do that," Layla says with a sigh. "How are people supposed to realize you're sweet if you keep scaring them?"  
  
Warren goes back to staring down at his book, reaching up with one hand to pull his hair loose from whatever bastard ponytail Layla'd managed to put it in. He's done interacting.  
  
He passes the back of one hand across his mouth and ignores the way Will gulps audibly and Layla giggles.


End file.
